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Elections: Voting Systems

My Lords, I think we should look at what happened in Scotland after 1999. The Labour Party had 33 per cent of the vote, while the Liberal Democrats secured 17 per cent, making 50 per cent. The people of Scotland wanted something different from what was done in Westminster, such as scrapping student tuition fees. The people of Scotland got more of what they wanted because of proportional representation. I believe that that was representative and fair. It was right that powers were devolved in a way that the voters could decide that. It is an illustration of the system delivering for the people in a more democratic way than is the case under first past the post. So I hope that there will be further reform, although it could be in stages. I accept that the Government may want to see further progress before going all the way towards more proportional systems. If we had something like the alternative vote, it would address many of the concerns on the Labour Benches in the first place, but it would still be inadequate, and were we to have a general election under that system, the case would be made in the future that we need to move either to a top-up or, ideally, to the single transferable vote, which I think would be the best of all systems.